In the thread Power surges in my apartment. How do I fix it?, several people have shared success stories of a well calibrated whack.

Sometimes it is not so successful. A software test engineer, Vlad, had stored all his work for years on his desktop without backing it up. When the hard drive failed, it became ITs responsibility to recover it. We were about to try the frozen drive trick, when he became impatient and decided to take matters into his own hands.

From a height of about five feet, Vlad dropped the entire system onto a concrete floor, to "loosen the data". The system was now an expensive boat anchor.

He was henceforth known as "The Vladinator".

 

A sad and funny story indeed

 

+1

I amended my story after my memory was jogged.

It was not my intent to have the OP wielding a hammer!

Just an anecdote about a professional.

 

Well, with an appropriate place to post this…

Once upon a time there was a large chemical plant. It ran just fine till one day there was a loud gurgling noise and the main product pipe ran dry, followed by noisy alarm trips and then the entire plant grinding to a halt.

After noting the line had not started up for an hour Daniel the CEO demanded that Steve the plant manager come to his office and explain the problem and why the plant would not come back online immediately.

“Well… gee, you see Bob our lead repair man usually handles this stuff” the manager sheepishly replied.

“Well get Bob right on this, what is wrong with you?”

“Sorry but Bob retired last week and we are still learning most of what he did to keep this place going.”

“Well get him back here, I don’t care what this costs!”

So Steve went to his office and looked up Bob’s number and gave him a call. After several tries and many many rings Bob finally answered. “I don’t know if I can make it today, I’m supposed to be going fishing today.”

Steve begged and pleaded and offered to Bob he could write his own bill when finished. Bob reluctantly agreed after also getting a free lunch thrown into the deal.

So Bob showed up again an hour later, wearing his faded blue coveralls, trusty tool belt of tools he had personally accumulated over the years, tools that got things to work in the real world, as opposed to those silly “service manuals.”

Bob walked up and down the halls of the plant followed by an obviously worried Steve who was followed by an obviously annoyed and impatient Daniel. When Daniel spoke Bob would first hush him, then just raise one finger.

Upon finally walking to the main pipe junction area Bob hummed a bit then just to himself spoke “I thought so.” He lifted a 5 pound sledge hammer from his belt and said “I told you guys to keep the filters clean every day. You have a main line sludge clog.”

Just as quick as he said that Bob takes the sledge and gives the elbow joint a whack… the gurgling gets louder followed by a SWOOSH, and each alarm in turn went from red to green, and the plant smoothly came back up and online.

“There, main line sludge clog. Better keep them filters clean like I told you.”

“Wow Bob” said Steve, “that’s is wonderful. What do we owe you?”

Bob smiled. “Five thousand dollars.”

Steve looked shocked. Daniel went from almost happy (a minimal scowl) to bright red. “Five thousand for five minutes work? Why, I am going to need an official itemized bill. On paper!”

Bob just said “Fine,” whipped out a pad of paper and in his best penmanship wrote the following:

Banging on pipe: Five Dollars.

Knowing which pipe to bang: Four Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety Five Dollars.

 

the company here is going to have a probelm like that here soon, I am 66 and have a case of congestive heart failure. I am also the last tech in the facilities electronic repair shop. they dont seem to be very enthusiastic about getting anyone in here for me to train. we have 230 facilities electricians here that bring me stuff (mostly obsolete stuff) to fix for them.

 

230 electricians at one location, ... in Kansas!

You need better negotiating skills. They will either have to pay you or hire a trainee (or two) to pass along your knowledge - even that, I would ask for additional compensation.

 

the place used to be called boeing and had even more. a lot of equipment in about 5 square miles. I am not sure if they know that I am taking all my notes with me when I go.

 

meh... I don't have sympathy for "experts".

software engineer who does not know about backup? like race car driver who can't park or start the car...

 

or an electrician not familiar with older technologies and equipment that has been modified for years? the factory guys dont even come here except on the newest stuff. the tech schools and engineering schools dont teach some of the stuff here anymore.

 

the place used to be called boeing and had even more. a lot of equipment in about 5 square miles. I am not sure if they know that I am taking all my notes with me when I go.

If those notes were either written on company stationery, or on company time, then they are the companies property and any attempt to remove them from the premises would be considered theft.

However, leaving them in the trash has no legal encumbrances IHMO.

I wouldn’t worry about it anyway. No matter how much information I left behind at jobs as I left no one could decipher what was in there anyway. It’s not like I wrote a book or detailed explanation startng with defining terms, stating goals, introducing concepts, and making summations. It may just be a schematic, fuzzy layout and notes like “R17 gets hot.”

I did have one former employer begin legal action to force me to produce procedure documents I had not written.

Needless to say I was very happy when I left that place.

 

I did have one former employer begin legal action to force me to produce procedure documents I had not written.

I love it. I had something similar - as I was moving departments, my former manager told me, "before you leave my group, you have to tell me everything I don't know." I started with his management skills.